Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Ring Out (Final Offer of 2018), 12/22/2018

  (Block Wines Semillon Tauro Block Boushey Vineyard) Hello friends. This is our final offer of 2018. We’ll plan to stay out of your inboxes until January 6, when you can expect our first offer of 2019. In the meantime, after our open hours today (Saturday; 11am-7pm) we are CLOSED for pickups for the next few weeks, and our first TPU pickup day in 2019 will be Thursday January 10. Today’s offer will include reorder links for a handful of our well-loved in-house wines – three from the Block Wines line, four from Full Pull & Friends, and one from Starside – but first, we’ll do what we’ve done every year since 2009: excerpt Tennyson’s In Memoriam. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. I have always loved quoting those stanzas, the way they speak to the cleansing grace of the end of a year. But this year is complicated. My father died, suddenly and unexpectedly, on December 3 (here is a remembrance I wrote soon after). And while I would normally be inclined to keep family matters like this private, that doesn’t seem appropriate for my dad, who had become interwoven with Full Pull over the past few years. He loved working the tasting bar on Thursdays and telling stories. (Some of them were even true.) He loved Full Pull, loved our team, and really loved our list members. So in addition to the thanks I would normally give to you all, for all the support you’ve given to Full Pull in 2018, I also want to say thank you for enlivening and enriching the last years of my dad’s life. We'll be doing a small ceremony at Full Pull in late January to celebrate my father's life. If any of you are interested in attending, please just reply to this email and let me know, and I'll send along details when we have them. Ring out the grief that saps the mind for those that here we see no more. I’m trying. Moving to happier topics, this was a wonderful year for Full Pull, a year of surprising growth. Way back on April 23, I christened 2018 “the year of the deal” and my goodness was that borne out by the subsequent eight months. It felt like kismet: Full Pull growing to a point where we have substantial buying power on behalf of y’all, right at the same time that many wineries needed help moving significant volumes of juice, with a willingness to do so via significant discounts. All signs point to more of the same in 2019. But of course we’re not all about the discount deals; in fact they remain a small minority of our offers. The vast majority still focus on the finest wines from the compelling boutique producers of the Pacific Northwest. Our goal remains connecting the finest farmers and winemakers of this corner of the world with a vibrant community of wine lovers who can’t seem to get enough of all this good juice. Speaking of good juice...Our first Semillon fermented and aged in concrete egg, this has been a hit since its release: a frequent buy at the tasting table and a frequent reorder target too. We’ve now sold through about 85% of our production, so this is moving into last-call territory. International Wine Report (Owen Bargreen): “This great Yakima Valley vineyard is gaining a strong reputation for Semillon. The wine opens with aromatics of green papaya, nectarine and New York apple with hints of cloves. The round mouthfeel impresses. Pink Lady apple, baking spices and cantaloupe flavors sit alongside some nice tension. This is another great release made by the talented Morgan Lee. Drink 2017-2022. 90pts.”

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Block Reoffers, 8/3/2018

  (Block Wines Semillon Tauro Block Boushey Vineyard) Phenol55 REMINDER: Full Pull has partnered with Phenol55 for *optional* storage services for our list members. P55 is a full-service wine cellar less than ten minutes from our warehouse, in the subterranean basement of the Malt House in the heart of Georgetown. See here for more details, and then contact Phenol55 if you’re interested in signing up. ----- Hello friends. One of the most exciting additions to Full Pull over the past fews years has been our winery within Full Pull—Block Wines. The addition of this project, made by the immeasurably talented Morgan Lee, has led to the opening of our tasting room; it has led to additional members of team Full Pull; it has led to many more available days for list members to pick up wine; and it has led to more delicious Washington-made juice for us all to enjoy. This summer has marked the first time since its inception that we’ve had this many Block Wines available at the same time. Seems like the perfect opportunity to allow for reorders:Our first Semillon fermented and aged in concrete egg, this has been a hit since its release: a frequent buy at the tasting table and a frequent reorder target too. We’ve now sold through about 85% of our production, so this is moving into last-call territory. International Wine Report (Owen Bargreen): “This great Yakima Valley vineyard is gaining a strong reputation for Semillon. The wine opens with aromatics of green papaya, nectarine and New York apple with hints of cloves. The round mouthfeel impresses. Pink Lady apple, baking spices and cantaloupe flavors sit alongside some nice tension. This is another great release made by the talented Morgan Lee. Drink 2017-2022. 90pts.”

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Concrete Grenache, 5/6/2018

  (Block Wines Semillon Tauro Block Boushey Vineyard) Hello friends. We have the return today of arguably the most popular bottling our house winery produces, and this year with a new twist, as it was fermented and aged entirely in one Nomblot concrete egg.Our first Semillon fermented and aged in concrete egg, this has been a hit since its release: a frequent buy at the tasting table and a frequent reorder target too. We’ve now sold through about 85% of our production, so this is moving into last-call territory. International Wine Report (Owen Bargreen): “This great Yakima Valley vineyard is gaining a strong reputation for Semillon. The wine opens with aromatics of green papaya, nectarine and New York apple with hints of cloves. The round mouthfeel impresses. Pink Lady apple, baking spices and cantaloupe flavors sit alongside some nice tension. This is another great release made by the talented Morgan Lee. Drink 2017-2022. 90pts.”

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Instant Gratification 8 of 8: Ring Out (Final Offer of 2017), 12/23/2017

  (Block Wines Semillon Tauro Block Boushey Vineyard) Holiday Pickup Schedule REMINDER: Please take note of our schedule below for the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018: Dec 23 (TODAY): Open 11am-7pm Dec 28-30: CLOSED Jan 4-6: CLOSED Jan 11-13: Open 11am-7pm ---- Hello friends. This is our final offer of 2017. We’ll plan to stay out of your inboxes until about January 7, when you can expect our first offer of 2018. In the meantime, after our open hours today (Saturday; 11am-7pm) we are CLOSED for pickups for the next few weeks, and our first TPU pickup day in 2017 will be Thursday January 11. Today’s offer will mostly focus on reflections from a busy 2017. At the end of the offer we’ll include reorder links for a handful of our in-house favorites; and at the beginning we’ll do what we’ve done every year since 2009: excerpt Tennyson’s In Memoriam. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. I love quoting these particular stanzas, because they speak to the cleansing grace of the end of a year, the power of first remembering and then letting go. One memory that stands out to me from 2017 was our team’s September trip with Morgan Lee to visit all the vineyards we work with for our in-house winery, Block Wines. This was the first year that we were able to bring nearly our entire team on that eastern Washington swing, and it led to all sorts of interesting conversations, several of them sober even. And I remember Pat making the point – after seeing all these pristine, carefully-tended vineyards and tasting all these perfect grape berries ripening on the vine – that the raw materials we start with in the Pacific Northwest are truly beautiful, and that the role of the winemakers is to convey that beauty in the finished wines. Our job at Full Pull is to suss out the winemakers who are achieving the honest expression of this rigorous farming, and to shield our list members from all the rest. I see our role as that of the curator/matchmaker: the curator side tasting broadly so that you don’t have to; the matchmaker side connecting the best winemakers in the northwest (and a few in the rest of the world) to a group of people who care about the beverages they consume. And that’s what always strikes me about our list members. In a world where cool detachment seems to be in the ascendancy, our list members are a countercultural group who choose to *care* about something. In this case, it’s wine, but it’s the caring itself that’s telling of the kind of folks who populate our list. Our Full Pull team feels very fortunate to have such a thoughtful, engaged, kind group of people as our list members. Thank you all for such robust support in 2017. Now then, let’s do this quixotic thing we do – attempting to use language to convey sensory experience – one more time, and then let’s close the door on 2017.Our first Semillon fermented and aged in concrete egg, this has been a hit since its release: a frequent buy at the tasting table and a frequent reorder target too. We’ve now sold through about 85% of our production, so this is moving into last-call territory. International Wine Report (Owen Bargreen): “This great Yakima Valley vineyard is gaining a strong reputation for Semillon. The wine opens with aromatics of green papaya, nectarine and New York apple with hints of cloves. The round mouthfeel impresses. Pink Lady apple, baking spices and cantaloupe flavors sit alongside some nice tension. This is another great release made by the talented Morgan Lee. Drink 2017-2022. 90pts.”

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Concrete Semillon, 9/8/2017

  (Block Wines Semillon Tauro Block Boushey Vineyard) Hello friends. Every day we get to offer a new wine from our house winery, Block Wines, is a special day, but today feels extra special, because we get to offer our first wine fermented and aged in concrete: a lovely little Nomblot egg that holds about 75-80 cases, just right for what we need. [Please note: we’ll also use this opportunity to reoffer our Block Grenache, which has been picking up loads of positive press since its release.] Our first Semillon fermented and aged in concrete egg, this has been a hit since its release: a frequent buy at the tasting table and a frequent reorder target too. We’ve now sold through about 85% of our production, so this is moving into last-call territory. International Wine Report (Owen Bargreen): “This great Yakima Valley vineyard is gaining a strong reputation for Semillon. The wine opens with aromatics of green papaya, nectarine and New York apple with hints of cloves. The round mouthfeel impresses. Pink Lady apple, baking spices and cantaloupe flavors sit alongside some nice tension. This is another great release made by the talented Morgan Lee. Drink 2017-2022. 90pts.”